In the late 1970s, San Jose city employees were frustrated with flat wages and pay inequities for women workers. They believed that job categories dominated by women were undervalued and underpaid, and they proved it through a multi-year campaign for pay equity led by AFSCME Local 101/Municipal Employees Federation, AFSCME Council 57. Their efforts went a long way towards closing pay gaps, but it wouldn’t have happened without a strike in 1981. AFSCME secretary-treasurer Elissa McBride brings us the story of the first pay equity strike in U.S. history.
In December of 1954, Boston meatpackers in CIO Local 11 were just over a month into a strike against the Colonial Provision Company. That strike went on to make history, continuing for 14 months, the longest in Massachusetts history. Interracial cooperation was also a hallmark of the struggle by the Boston meatpackers, who were also redbaited and had their union decertified. The story of how these workers fought back – and won – is still inspiring and has lessons for today’s battles.
On this week’s Labor History in Two: the year was 1947. That was the day that the United Mine Workers leader, John L. Lewis wrote the AFL stating “We disaffiliate.”
Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com
Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
Our story of the Boston meatpacker strike came from the film Glory Days: Boston Colonial Packinghouse Workers Recall the Strike of 1954 – 55, produced and directed by Cynthia McKeown, released in 1988; remastered in 2019. Labor history sources include Today in Labor History, compiled by David Prosten.
This week's music: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton (plus a funk cover by Love Raptor) and Celebration by Kool and the Gang, both top hits in 1981, the year of the pay equity strike.
LHT Archives: Painters join Black Lives Matter protests; the history of black police in America; Race and Rebellion
The 1913 Dublin Lock-out
Shootout in Matewan; General strike in KC
Passaic textile strike & LAWCHA preview
Sea Shanties and the Pleasure of Work
50 years of “Strike!”
Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living!
Ludlow: My name is Louis Tikas
The U.S.-Canadian Labor History Collaborative
Canal workers, gays & miners, Gandhi’s labor quote
The Hardhat Riot
We Were There; Pins and Needles; Dust for Blood
Bootlegged Aliens; UPPER CASE WOMAN
Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America
Singing About Food Labor; Bill Lucy on the ’68 Memphis strike
The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly
The Valentine’s Day Strike of 1921
Remembering John Sweeney and Anne Feeney
What’s the matter with labor history?
The People, No
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